Magazine Ad Revenue, Pages Decline

Individual titles take first quarter beating.

The Publishers Information Bureau released its quarterly report this morning, and, unsurprisingly, consumer magazine publishers are having a tougher time selling ads in 2008 than they did in 2007.

Total rate-card-reported advertising revenue fell 1.2 percent during the first three months of the year. But ad pages—considered the more telling statistic, given the discounts many magazine publishers give to frequent advertisers—fell 6.4 percent.

Softness in the automotive and home furnishing ad categories “indicate that the down economy has affected ad spending in magazines,” says Ellen Oppenheim, executive vice president and Chief marketing officer at the Magazine Publishers of America.

Of the 231 magazines that reported advertising figures in both 2007 and 2008, 153 reported a decrease in advertising pages—80 by 10 percent or more. And only 54 magazines reported ad page gains of more than 10 percent.

Publishers who appear to be having the toughest time: Scientific American, down 45.5 percent in ad pages (to $5.12 million) and 41.7 percent in PIB ad revenue; U.S. News and World Report, down 37.5 percent in ad pages, 34.8 percent in ad revenue; Rolling Stone, down 32.6 percent in pages and 26.7 percent in revenue (to $31.24 million, compared to $42.6 million in the first quarter of 2007); the recently-sold gay-and-lesbian title Advocate, down 30.3 percent in ad pages, 22.4 percent in ad revenue; Coastal Living, down 41.1 percent in ad pages, 35.3 percent in revenue; AARP, down 23.8 percent in ad pages; Entertainment Weekly, down 20.7 percent in ad pages; and National Geographic and SI’s “For Kids” editions, down 49.2 and 42.8 percent in ad pages, respectively.